ADL

Ballard Partners has signed the Anti-Defamation League as a client. The Florida firm will help the New York organization to develop practices and policies to counter antisemitism in the US.

ADL’s most recent “Audit of Antisemitic Incidents” report found 8,873 anti-Jewish instances in the US in 2023, up 140 percent from the previous year. That’s the biggest number on record since the ADL first began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979.

The dramatic upswing took place after Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7 and the ensuing Israeli response to the terrorist attack. Between Oct. 7 and the end of 2023, ADL tracked 5,204 incidents, which was more than the whole of 2022.

More than half of (52 percent) of the post Oct. 7 cases included references to Israel, Zionism or Palestine. ADL says it observed explicitly antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric at 1,352 anti-Israel rallies across the US.

Brian Ballard, who is a major fundraiser for Donald Trump, spearheads the ADL representation with Hunter Morgen, who served three years in the Trump Administration as a special assistant to the President and Senior Advisor for policy and strategy in the White House.

Pam Bondi, a partner at the firm, is Trump’s nominee for attorney general.